of the enemy was very flow, it gave time to the feveral inhabitants who bordered upon the regions of Falfhood to draw their forces into a body, with a design to ftand upon their guard as neuters, and attend the iffue of the combat.

I must here inform my reader, that the frontiers of the enchanted region, which I have before defcribed, were inhabited by the fpecies of Mixed Wit, who made a very odd appearance when they were mustered together in an army. There were men whose bodies were fuck full of darts, and women whofe eyes were burning-glaffes; men that had hearts of fire, and women that had breafts of fnow. It would be endless to describe several moniters of the like nature, that compofed this great army; which immediately fell asunder and divided itself into two parts, the one half throwing themselves behind the banners of Truth, and the others behind thofe of Falfhood.

The goddess of Falfhood was of a gigantic ftature, and advanced fome paces before the front of her army; but as the dazzling light, which flowed from Truth, began to fhine upon her, the faded infenfibly; infomuch that in a little fpace fhe looked rather like an huge phantom than a real fubstance. At length, as the goddess of Truth approached ftill nearer to her, the fell away intirely, and vanished amidst the brightnefs of her prefence; fo that there did not remain the leaft trace or impreffion of her figure in the place where he had

been seen.

As at the rifing of the fun the conftellations grow thin, and the ftars go out one after another, till the whole hemifphere is extinguished; fuch was the vanishing of the goddefs: and not only of the goddess herself, but of the whole army that attended her, which fympathized with their leader, and shrunk into

nothing, in proportion as the goddefs difappeared. At the fame time the whole temple funk, the fish betook themfelves to the streams, and the wild beafts to the woods; the fountains recovered their murmurs, the birds their voices, the trees their leaves, the flowers their fcents, and the whole face of nature it's true and genuine appearance. Though I ftill continued afleep, I fancied myself as it were awakened out of a dream, when I faw this region of prodigies reftored to woods and rivers, fields and meadows.

Upon the removal of that wild fcene of wonders, which had very much difturbed my imagination, I took a full furvey of the perfons of Wit and Truth; for indeed it was impoffible to look upon the first without feeing the other at the fame time. There was behind them a ftrong and compact body of figures. The genius of Heroic Poetry appeared with a fword in her hand, and a laurel on her head. Tragedy was crowned with cyprefs, and covered with robes dipped in blood. Satire had fmiles in her look, and a dagger under her garment. Rhetoric was known by her thunderbolt, and Comedy by her mask. After feveral other figures, Epigram marched up in the rear, who had been pofted there at the beginning of the expedition, that he might not revolt to the enemy, whom he was fufpected to favour in his heart. I was very much awed and delighted with the appearance of the god of Wit; there was fomething fo amiable and yet fo piercing in his looks, as infpired me at once with love and ter

ror.

As I was gazing on him, to my unfpeakable joy, he took a quiver of arrows from his fhoulder, in order to make me a prefent of it; but as I was reaching out my hand to receive it of him, I knocked it against a chair, and by that means awaked.

Juv. SAT. III. 183.

Tme mute conduct of our lives, we HE moft improper things we comare led into by the force of fashion. Inftances might be given, in which a prevailing custom makes us aft against the

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ing. The cuftom of reprefenting the grief we have for the lofs of the dead by our habits, certainly had it's rife from the real forrow of fuch as were too much diftreffed to take the proper care. they ought of their drefs. By degrees it prevailed, that fuch as had this inward oppreffion upon their minds, made an apology for not joining with the rest of the world in their ordinary diverfions by a drefs fuited to their condition. This therefore was at firft affumed by fuch only as were under real diftrefs; to whom it was a relief that they had nothing about them fo light and gay as to be irksome to the gloom and melancholy of their inward reflections, or that might mifreprefent them to others. In procefs of time this laudable distinction of the forrowful was lost, and mourning is now worn by heirs and widows. You fee nothing but magnificence and folemnity in the equipage of the relict, and an air of releafe from fervitude in the pomp of a fon who has loft a wealthy father. This fashion of forrow is now become a generous part of the ceremonial between princes and fovereigns, who in the language of all nations are ftiled brothers to each other, and put on the purple upon the death of any potentate with whom they live in amity. Courtiers, and all who with themfelves fuch, are immediately feized with grief from head to foot upon this difafter to their prince; fo that one may know, by the very buckles of a gentleman-ufher, what degree of friendship any deceased momarch maintained with the court to which he belongs. A good courtier's habit and behaviour is hieroglyphical on thefe occafions; he deals much in whispers, and you may see he dreffes according to the beft intelligence.

The general affectation among men, of appearing greater than they are, makes the whole world run into the habit of the court. You fee the lady, who the day before was as various as a rainbow, upon the time appointed for beginning to mourn, as dark as a cloud. This humour does not prevail only on those whofe fortunes can fupport any change in their equipage, not on thofe only whofe incomes demand the wantonnefs of new appearances; but on fuch alfo who have just enough to clothe them. An old acquaintance of mine, of ninety pounds a year, who has natu#ally the vanity of being a man of fa

fhion deep at his heart, is very much put to it to bear the mortality of princes. He made a new black fuit upon the death of the King of Spain, he turned it for the King of Portugal, and he now keeps his chamber while it is scouring for the Emperor. He is a good economitt in his extravagance, and makes only a fresh black button upon his irongrey fuit for any potentate of fmall territories; he indeed adds his crape hatband for a prince whose exploits he has admired in the Gazette. But whatever compliments may be made on these occafions, the true mourners are the mercers, filkmen, lacemen, and milliners. A prince of a merciful and royal difpofition would reflect with great anxiety upon the prospect of his death, if he confidered what numbers would be reduced to mifery by that accident only; he would think it of moment enough to direct, that in the notification of his departure, the honour done to him might be reftrained to thofe of the houshold of the prince to whom it should be fignified. He would think a general mourning to be in a lefs degree the fame ceremony which is practifed in barbarous nations, of killing their flaves to attend the obfequies of their kings.

I had been wonderfully at a lofs for many months together, to guess at the character of a man who came now and then to our coffee-houfe; he ever ended anews-paper with this reflection: Well, I fee all the foreign princes are in good health. If you afked- Pray, Sir, what fays the Poftman from Vienna?' he answered- Make us thankful, the • German princes are all well.'—' What does he fay from Barcelona?'-' He does not peak but that the country agrees very well with the new queen. After very much inquiry, I found this man of universal loyalty was a wholefale dealer in filks and ribbons: his way is, it seems, if he hires a weaver or workman, to have it inferted in his articles

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That all this fhall be well and truly performed, provided no foreign potentate shall depart this life within the time above-mentioned.' It happens in all public mournings, that the many trades which depend upon our habits, are during that felly either pinched with prefent want, or terrified with the apparent approach of it. All the atonemént which men can make for wanton expences, which is a fort of infulting the Icarcity

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fcarcity under which others labour, is, that the fuperfluities of the wealthy give fupplies to the neceffities of the poor; but instead of any other good arifing from the affectation of being in courtly habits of mourning, all order feems to be destroyed by it; and the true honour, which one court does to another on that occafion, lofes it's force and efficacy. When a foreign minister beholds the court of a nation, which flourishes in riches and plenty, lay afide, upon the lofs of his mafter, all marks of fplendor and magnificence, though the head of fuch a joyful people, he will conceive a greater idea of the honour done his master, than when he fees the generality of the people in the fame habit. When one is afraid to afk the wife of a tradef

man whom he has loft of her family's and after fome preparation endeavours to know whom the mourns for; how ridiculous is it to hear her explain herfelf, that we have loft one of the house of Auftria? Princes are elevated fo highly above the rest of mankind, that it is a prefumptuous distinction to take a part in honours done to their memories, except we have authority for it, by being related in a particular manner to the court which pays that veneration to their friendship, and feems to exprefs on fuch an occafion the fenfe of the uncertainty of human life in general, by affuming the habit of forrow, though in the full poffeffion of triumph and reyalty.

HOR. SAT. I. x. 90

FTER having at large explained

appearances of it, all that labour feems but an ufelefs inquiry, without fome time be spent in confidering the application of it. The feat of wit, when one fpeaks as a man of the town and the world, is the playhoufe; I fhall therefore fill this paper with reflections upon the ufe of it in that place. The application of wit in the theatre has as ftrong an effect upon the manners of our gentlemen, as the taste of it has upon the writings of our authors. It may, perhaps, look like a very prefumptuous work, though not foreign from the duty of a Spectator, to tax the writings of fuch as have long had the general ap. plaufe of a nation; but I fhall always make reafon, truth, and nature, the meafures of praife and difpraife; if thofe are for me, the generality of opinion is of no confequence against me; if they are against me, the general opinion cannot long fupport me.

Without further preface, I am going to look into fome of our most applauded plays, and fee whether they deferve the figure they at prefent bear in the imaginations of men, or not.

In reflecting upon thefe works, I fhall

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chiefly dwell upon that for which each

prefent paper shall be employed upon Sir Fopling Flutter. The received character of this play is, that it is the pattern of genteel comedy. Dorimant and Harriot are the characters of greatest confequence; and if thefe are low and mean, the reputation of the play is very unjust.

I will take it for granted, that a fine gentleman fhould be honeft in his actions, and refined in his language. Inftead of this, our hero in this piece is a direct knave in his defigns, and a clown in his language. Bellair is his admirer and friend; in return for which, becaufe he is forfooth a greater wit than his faid friend, he thinks it reasonable to perfuade him to marry a young lady, whofe virtue, he thinks, will Ïaft no longer than till fhe is a wife, and then the cannot but fall to his share, as he is an irrefiftible fine gentleman. The falfhood to Mrs. Loveit, and the barbarity of triumphing over her anguish for lofing him, is another inftance of his honefty, as well as his good-nature. As to his fine language, he calls the orange-woman, who it feems is inclined to grow fat, an overgrown jade, with a Aafket of guts before her;' and falutes

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lutes her with a pretty phrafe of- How now, double-tripe?" Upon the mention of a country gentlewoman, whom he knows nothing of, no one can imagine why, he will lay his life fhe is fome aukward ill-fashioned country toad, who, not having above four 'dozen of hairs on her head, has adorned 'her baldness with a large white fruz, 'that the may look fparkifhly in the 'fore-front of the king's box at an old play. Unnatural mixture of fenfelefs common-place!

As to the generofity of his temper, he tells his poor footman, if he did not wait better, he would turn him away, in the infolent phrafe of I'll uncafe you.'

Now for Mrs. Harriot; fhe laughs at obedience to an abient mother, whofe tenderness Bufy defcribes to be very exquinte, for ・ that she is so pleased with finding Harriot again, that the cannot chide her for being out of the way.' This witty daughter, and fine lady, has fo little respect for this good woman, that the ridicules her air in taking leave, and cries- In what ftruggle is my poor mother yonder? Sce, fee her head tottering, her eyes ftaring, and her under-lip trembling. But all this is atoned for, becaufe fhe has 'more wit than is ufual in her fex, and as much malice, though the is as wild as you would with her, and has a demurenefs in her looks that * makes it so surprising!' Then to recommend her as a fit fpoufe for his hero, the poet makes her fpeak her fense of marriage very ingenioufly; I think,' fays the, I might be brought to endure him, and that is all a reasonable ' woman should expect in an husband.' It is, methinks, unnatural that we are not made to understand how the that was bred under a filly pious old mother, that would never truft her out of her fight, came to be fo polite.

It cannot be denied, but that the negligence of every thing, which engages the attention of the fober and valuable part of mankind, appears very well drawn in this piece; but it is denied, that it is neceffary to the character of a fine gentleman, that he fhould in that manner trample upon all order and de

cency. As for the character of Dorimant, it is more of a coxcomb than that of Fopling. He fays of one of his companions, that a good correspondence between them is their mutual intereft. Speaking of that friend, he declares, their being much together makes the women think the better of his underftanding, and judge more favourably of my reputation. It makes him país upon fome for a man of very good fenfe, and me upon others for a very • civil perfon.'

This whole celebrated piece is a perfect contradiction to good manners, good fenfe, and common honefty; and as there is nothing in it but what is built upon the ruin of virtue and innocence, according to the notion of merit in this comedy, I take the fhoemaker to be, in reality, the fine gentleman of the play; for it feems he is an Atheist, if we may depend upon his character as given by the orange-woman, who is herfelf far from being the lowest in the play. She lays of a fine man, who is Dorimant's companion, there is not fuch another heathen in the town, except the 'fhoemaker.' His pretenfion to be the hero of the drama appears ftill more in his own defcription of his way of living with his lady. There is, fays he,

never a man in town lives more like a gentleman with his wife than I do; I never mind her motions; the never inquires into mine. We speak to one another civilly, hate one another heartily; and becaule it is vulgar to lie and foak together, we have each of us our feveral fettle-bed.' That of foaking together is as good as if Dorimant had spoken it himself; and, I think, fince he puts human nature in as ugly a form as the circumitance will bear, and is a ftaunch unbeliever, he is very much wronged in having no part of the good fortune bestowed in the last act.

To fpeak plainly of this whole work, I think nothing but being lot to a fenfe of innocence and virtue can make any one fee this comedy, without obferving more frequent occafion to move forrow and indignation, than mirth and laughAt the fame time I allow it to be nature, but it is nature in it's utmost corruption and degeneracy.

ter.

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